1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal device and a projector.
2. Related Art
Projection display apparatuses, such as projectors, are used widely. A projector includes a splitting optical system for splitting light-source light into different color light components, a light modulator for obtaining color image light components by modulating the split color light components, a prism for producing a color image by combining the color image light components, and a projection lens for enlarging and projecting the color image onto a screen. As the light modulator, a liquid crystal light valve having a liquid crystal device is adopted.
In a liquid crystal device, liquid crystal is sandwiched between a pair of substrates. One of the substrates includes a plurality of pixel electrodes arranged in a matrix, switching elements for controlling the supply of current to the pixel electrodes, scanning lines for supplying scanning signals to the switching elements, and data lines crossing the scanning lines such as to supply image signals to the switching elements. The other substrate includes a common electrode. By applying the voltage between the common electrode and the pixel electrodes, the liquid crystal is driven, and the transmittance for incident light is changed in each pixel. Image light corresponding to each color is thereby obtained (for example, see JP-A-11-95235).
In the above-described liquid crystal device, regions where the pixel electrodes are provided serve as apertures, and regions where the scanning lines, the data lines, and the switching elements are provided around the pixel electrodes serve as non-aperture regions that do not transmit light. Since the size of the non-aperture regions is significant for the wavelength of light, light diffraction occurs at the ends of the apertures. In particular, when the pixel size is small (e.g., 6 μm or less), a quite high proportion of transmitted light is influenced by diffraction. In the projection display device, when the optical path of light is bent by the influence of diffraction, the light is not received by the projection lens, and an obtained image is markedly dark.